Forum:Wanted: animated illustrations for various articles
If you review the list then you'll see a mixture of .png and .gif files are needed to illustrate various articles at this wiki. Most file names are self explanatory and those which are not will make sense if you click the What links here link in the left nav-bar to find the article that uses each image. Where .gif is specified it is my intent for that to be an animated illustration. I don't know how to create such files but have read that GIF supports a crude form of animation whereas PNG does not. The overriding goal for all these illustrations is a small file size for rapid page rendering. A good goal is less than 100kB for animated images and complex static images and then for the simpler static images probably less than 15kB. So 16 color or even 4 color files would be adequate with simple boat outlines and preferably a wake trail to show the path each boat has taken through the water. If you are a master at GIMP or Adobe Illustrator then these illustrations would be a valuable contribution you can make to this wiki. If you'd like to view some inspiration please visit proper course and other animated illustrations at www.americascup.com. (That site uses flash player which may also work here I just don't have any experience with it.) Regards, najevi 12:37, 17 June 2009 (UTC) ; Tactical Sailing Situations : I just came across this web site so if you have experience with this shareware then please post a brief review here. najevi 13:06, 25 June 2009 (UTC) A few months have passed and this author is a little wiser about choices for file formats. At the moment there are 150-160 images on the list. That's too many for one person but quite reasonable for 5 or 10 people. *In short summary I now believe that the SVG file format will be the best for these illustrations. I don't plan to painstakingly go through each redlink to rename them using the appropriate filename extestion (although maybe I can find someone proficient with the python bot to do this in one fell swoop!) * I've revised the 'Racing Scenario Illustrator' palette of icons based on the colors recommended at the 'Manual of Style' * I've tested the use of OOo '''Draw' to export a diagram as an SVG image - it works well ** Copying a diagram that you created in OOo Writer over to OOo Draw is as easy as Ctrl+X in Writer followed by Ctrl+V in Draw! The manual of style has been revised to mention the specific color labels used within OpenOffice.org applications. Consistent use of the same set of colors will make the wiki appear to be well organized. BTW, there is a new feature at Wikia that enables you to specify a set of wiki articles to be printed on magazine style glossy paper and bound to produce a professional looking product - for personal use (and not commercial use) of course. I have no experience creating animated images but I have read that SVG format supports animation via pre-existing XML features. For the time being let's just use static images and if any creative soul wishes to experiment with animation then you have free reign to do so. Please remember to use a transparent background in your images. This may not seem very important (because the wiki uses a white background within the article space) however, if anybody wants to reuse your contribution on a page or website with some textured or colored background then having the transparency in place from the "get go" will no doubt be appreciated. An A$4or US-letter sized diagram should be roughly 630x630 pixels and the SVG file size for a very busy diagram is about 200kB however once the image is scaled and rastered for display in an article (mediawiki software at wikia takes care of the scaling and raster for you) a 210x210 pixel image is much less than 20kB which should preserve very fast page loading. --najevi 03:51, November 8, 2009 (UTC) :If you want to create GIF animation's, do the following; # Download the Camtasia Trial # Open it, and choose "Record the screen" # Record what you want to be an animation, and save it # Import the media file in camtasia, and place it in the time line # Choose "Produce as..." # Choose "GIF Animation" **The rest is very obvious. Hope this helps. Tedjuh10 (Talk) 13:27, November 10, 2009 (UTC) All comes to he who waits As you may have read at the main page Boat Scenario is a super easy tool for creating animated and still diagrams with four popular boats. This is so much easier to use than any OOo drawing tool and it is also open source so please use that application to create illustrations for the wiki. -- najevi 14:42, December 26, 2009 (UTC)